Stay on target

One of the most fascinating games I played at Play NYC, a conference full of fascinating local New York indie games, put me in the shoes of famous small-handedMODOK Donald Trump. I was being mercilessly assaulted on all sides by hordes of fake news readers and had to escape to safety. I couldn’t directly move forward. I could only move left and right, sidestepping the issues, until I stumbled into a safe space opening and could proceed through. It really makes you think.

The gameplay and premise were already pretty politically loaded, but what really took this terror over the top was its hazy, surreal aesthetic. The imagery floated in front of me, like I could actually reach out and touch it, like the game was bleeding out into the real world. It really added to the experience. And what made these psychedelic visuals possible? This nightmare Trump hologram game was a demo for the HoloPlayer One holographic display.

Looking Glass Factory is a New York-based team that wants to do cooler and cooler things with holograms. We owe it to Tupac and Goku. Their previous products include various 3D light cubes as well as Volume, a personal holographic display for viewing 3D colorful objects in 3D space without glasses.

HoloPlayer One is Looking Glass Factory’s next-generation holographic display. The version I played, compatible with both PC and Mac, is the beta prototype that developers are currently tinkering with. Like Volume, the HoloPlayer One projects 3D holographic images in front of you. However, instead of trapping the images in a cube, the HoloPlayer lets interact with them as if they were on a canvas.

I mean canvas literally. Along with game demos, attendees at Play NYC could make holographic drawings with their fingers by just reaching into the light field thanks to Intel “RealSense” 3D camera and interaction technology as well as “volumetric video capture.” It’s the kind of trippy immersion you get from a more experimental VR demo but without the headset, or a more elaborate stationary augmented reality experience. I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons I enjoyed Microsoft HoloLens.

The Trump game I played, Marshall’s Theory developed by Looking Glass itself, was just one demo designed to showcase the mind-bending potential of the HoloPlayer One. The glowing fuzz and bizarre presence of holographic visuals just add to the game’s already unsettling dream visuals and themes of paranoia. I should also mention that I played this game using a normal controller, so that’s also an option along with the more hands-on approach of the drawing demo.

But Marshall’s Theory is only one of many games we’ll (theoretically) get to play on this box. Right now developers can purchase a limited number of these beta dev kits, shipping this September, for $750 before the price jumps up to $1000.

Developers can also access a Unity SDK for the device and read tutorials on Looking Glass Factory’s website and forums. Looking Glass even holds local meet-ups where they teach interested developers in-person about how to use these exciting holographic tools. Once there’s enough software support (a port of Time Traveler by Sega perhaps?) hopefully it’ll just be a matter of time before consumers can get their hands on, and in, the HoloPlayer One.

Or maybe the HoloPlayer One shows the real world and we’re all just the holograms? Cue the Black Mirror title card!